Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come help me".[1]
It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by mariners and aviators, but in some countries local organizations such as police forces, firefighters, and transportation organizations also use the term. The call is always given three times in a row ("Mayday Mayday Mayday") to prevent mistaking it for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions, and to distinguish an actual Mayday call from a message about a Mayday call. I was crying, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" because I had not begun my May Muse and time was running short!

I had planned to pen a perky little Mother's Day column recounting some darling stories from family and friends about their most memorable Mother's Day, but I just didn't begin the interviews early enough and only got a few stories. Not quite enough for an amusing Muse. I don't really know why, but the concept of "Surrender" got stuck in my craw, and though I tried to shake it for something more "spring-like" I just wasn't able to. So, when I really don't know where to begin, I choose to start with the definition from dictionary.com:

But this wasn't really the type of surrender I was pondering. Then I found this online,o which was much closer to what I wanted to investigate this month:

Brennan Manning, in The Importance of Being Foolish, put it this way:

"But there is an essential difference between submission and surrender. The former is the conscious acceptance of reality. There is a superficial yielding, but tension continues...It is halfhearted acceptance. It is described by words such as resignation, compliance, acknowledgement, concession. There remains a feeling of reservation, a tug in the direction of non-acceptance. Surrender, on the other hand, is the moment when my forces of resistance cease to function, when I cannot help but respond to the call of the Spirit.
The ability to surrender is a gift of God. However eagerly we may desire it, however diligently we may strive to acquire it, surrender cannot be attained by personal endeavor.

My Mentor, anxious for the topic of my May Muse was wondering why I happened upon the subject of surrender. This is what he had to say about it: "The best and wisest Surrender will be the one to the most powerful factor which is the communion between the Inner ( self will ) and the Destiny, as God does things wonderfully and divinely." Yes! Exactly!

The first time I recall really hearing this term was during a long and lovely walk with my sister-in-law who was visiting us with her son. We walked and we talked about anything and everything. About our struggles and how we dealt with them. Trying this and that sometimes with success and sometimes not. As I have grown older, I have found that I have become much more accepting of life as it is- instead of always pining for what it could be ( granted, I still have a lot of work to do! ) But she is the first one who ever summed up this philosphy with the term "surrender". I think what she meant by surrender was not so much a giving up or lack of trying, but rather a serene acceptance of knowing that we cannot control all aspects of our destiny. Some things just are. Some of us will win the lottery and some of us will die young. Some of us will live a charmed life and others will live a life of toil. Try as we might to overcome our obstacles, destiny will have the last say. I found this concept to be very profound, as I had always thought of surrender as being the lazy way out. To quit without first fighting the good fight. To just give up. But this is not what she meant. It was more of the action that comes after fighting the good fight, and doing all that could humanly be done. It is the acceptance that destiny has overpowered our will. Or as my mentor so eloquently phrased it, surrender is the moment when our will and our destiny commune and become one. Wow.

Surrender and fight. Hmmmmm. Are they opposites or just two parts of a process? Is not our exhalation of breath a kind of surrender of our inhalation? If we would choose to fight it, we would surely perish. Doesn't the seed have to surrender its dominance in order for the plant to grow? The bud must surrender for the flower to bloom. The night surrenders to the day and the day surrenders unto the night.

When we can accept and embrace the idea that some things just are, instead of trying to force them not to be, I think we can find peace. We must do what we can while we can to the best of our capabilities, and then we can choose to accept the outcome or die fighting in futility to change it. As noted before, nature, in its infinite wisdom, dances beautifully with fight and surrender. But we as humans, ,perhaps existing in a state somewhere between pure nature and divine knowingness, strive and struggle in an effort to shape our destinies.

When we have exhausted our individual efforts and cried, "Mayday Mayday, Mayday" in the hopes that others will come to our assistance, we can then surrender or commune with our destiny. C'est La Vie.

Happy Cinqo De Mayo, Mother's Day and Memorial Day!

-Jewel

Yogi, having trouble with my photoshop again so I will put the asparagus recipe here:

Sauteed Asparagus

2 bunches Fresh Asparagus ends trimmed and snapped in half

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1 large shallot thinly sliced

Salt and Pepper to taste

Balsamic Reduction ( I have nly found this at World Market!)

Sautee the vegetables in the butter and oil until tender and then season with the salt and pepper. Drizzle the Balsamic on top. YUM

More Quotes:

A man should surrender the personal selfishness which binds him to this world. Giving up the false self is the true renunciation. - Ramana Maharshi

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God has put you in the world. What can you do about it? Resign everything to Him. Surrender yourself at His feet. Then there will be no more confusion. Then you will realize that it is God who does everything. - Ramakrishna Paramhansa

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The essential surrender happens within you, it has nothing to do with anybody outside you. The basic surrender is a relaxation, a trust  so dont be misguided by the word. Linguistically, surrender means to surrender to somebody, but religiously, surrender simply means trust, relaxing. It is an attitude rather than an act: you live through trust. - Osho

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If one surrenders oneself there will be no one to ask questions or to be thought of. Either the thoughts are eliminated by holding on to the root-thought `I', or one surrenders oneself unconditionally to the higher power. These are the only two ways for realization. - Ramana Maharshi

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The best way is to simply surrender to existence and allow it to take you wherever it takes you; it has never taken anybody into any wrong space. It always takes you back home. - Osho

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All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling - Blaise Pascal

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Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment. - Mahatma Gandhi

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Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.- Octavo Paz

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The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. - Vince Lombardi

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The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender.-William Booth

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We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can / namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.-St. Teresa of Avila

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If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.- Bhagavad Gita

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Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.- Theodore Roosevelt

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Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to Love-Virgil

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When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blessed.

William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

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He knows what He is doing with me. I cannot always understand His way, but I am content in the realization that He knows what is best. That is surrender.

Daya Mata

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Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.

Krishnamacharya

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To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go.

Lao Tzu (c.604 - 531 B.C.)

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We know the motion of our true nature by the open embrace and empty surrender and acceptance of everything as it is.

julie sarah powell

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In one breath we are drowning in the despair of unmet expectations and in the next we're drinking a toast to the angel of destiny--pleading, fighting, compelled to surrender to the awe-filled-truth that we are clueless to who and what we are. Except, that we can enter this never-ending vastness-- reaching into the heart of each and every encounter --and give it our most human touch -- the warmth of honest communication.

M-O-T-H-E-R
"M" is for the million things she gave me,
"O" means only that she's growing old,
"T" is for the tears she shed to save me,
"H" is for her heart of purest gold;
"E" is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
"R" means right, and right she'll always be,
Put them all together, they spell "MOTHER,"
A word that means the world to me.
- Howard Johnson

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Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.
- Unknown

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Best love message i've ever heard.."I BELIEVE IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT"...Because I'VE BEEN LOVING MY MOTHER SINCE I OPENED MY EYES....
- Unknown

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You may be treated like the maid,
you may be treated like the gardner,
you may be treated like the daycare,
you may be treated like the chauffer,
you may be treated like many things.
But one thing is for sure,
You will always be loved.
For a fathers work may be from sun up till sundown,
but a mothers work is never down.
And all that I have, am, and hope to be, I owe to you,
So this is for all the times I forgot to say THANK YOU!!
- Alison Thompson

I never knew how much love my heart could hold until someone called me "mommy"
- Unknown

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A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.
- Irish Proverb

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When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.
- Sophia Loren, from Women and Beauty

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You never appreciate all of the things your mother did for you until you find yourself doing the same things for your kids.
- Linda Poindexter

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My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
- Mark Twain

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How did you find the energy, Mom
To do all the things you did,
To be teacher, nurse and counselor
To me, when I was a kid.

How did you do it all, Mom,
Be a chauffeur, cook and friend,
Yet find time to be a playmate,
I just can't comprehend.

I see now it was love, Mom
That made you come whenever I'd call,
Your inexhaustible love, Mom
And I thank you for it all.-unknown

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"Of all the rights of women,
the greatest is to be a mother."
- Lin Yutang

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Despite how much we fought...
And how hard I tried to ignore her...
My mother was right...
About almost everything
- postsecret

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There are people in this world who spend everyday making important decisions, troubleshooting, refereeing fights, nursing egos, doing damage control, and multi-tasking. They are called mothers.
- Linda Poindexter